Originally posted by Darth Thor I doubt Snoke has even surpassed Vader.

Yeah, I agree with this, seeing as Kylo's main fear is to not become as strong as Vader.

As for Palpatine, he is still being treated as the overall greatest big bad, just as in Legends. However, anything is possible, but there'd need to be a very good explanation as to why Snoke suddenly decided to make himself relevant when the Empire lost it's grip on the galaxy. It be more understandable had Snoke come from the shadows with his own empire as opposed to a small faction of Palpatine's leftovers, and a small group of warriors including an apprentice who idolizes and worships Vader as a god, who in turn happens to be the guy who couldn't even stand before Sheev's presence without bowing. So far, Kylo isn't even as subservient to Snoke as Vader was to the Emperor. Palpatine is just depicted as being far more exalting to a galaxy spanning empire than Snoke is to the left overs of it.

To Snoke's credit, though, he did have a much greater super weapon at his disposal, and is trying to rebuild the empire, improving on the weaknesses of the original GE, but is still nonetheless the ruler of it's leftovers. What I'm getting at with saying that, is Snoke is obviously someone who was a high ranking official, who had a deep understanding of the inner workings of the GE, another underlying of Palpatine's who I doubt was a more powerful force user that Palpatine let live. If he's not this Gallius guy who I keep hearing about via youtube, then wouldn't it diminish Snokes own standing in a way? Considering that, from my understanding, is the string puller responsible for the rise of The First Order? (that one's a serious question)

But, being in a primitive era of force users, Snoke will rank very highly, no doubt. Palpatine, on the other hand, was the top dog (along with Yoda) of an era ripe with powerful force users.

IDK, but that's my reason why I don't think Snoke is going to be as powerful as Sidious or even Vader, without it making any sense.

__________________"The power of the dark side is an illness no true Sith would wish to be cured of" -Darth Plagueis

Frankly yes. In any kind of action-focused series the opposition SHOULD get increasingly more powerful and dangerous. It allows our heroes to continue to be challenged even as they gain skill, experience and wisdom.

As much as I love the "Legends" EU it did bother me somewhat how people seemed to think "no-one's allowed to be a worse villain than the Emperor because he was in the movies." That never made any sense to me.